The Monolith Deathcult’s new album Tetragrammaton redefines ‘over-the-top’ combing colossal death metal song-writing with more samples than Fear Factory and Ministry’s coke-addled lovechild. With love of keyboards, The Transformers and a manifest mission to delight and divide it is not surprising they are fast becoming one of heavy metal’s prime agitators.
But after years of work and with 50 or 60 demos behind some of the tracks on the latest release you can also assume they are making more than just a point. In fact, if any death metal band needed an amp that could go up to ‘11’ – The Monolith Deathcult is it. Unfortunately, our primitive, decimal scoring system here at Ave Noctum doesn’t go that high.
Here to explain to The Reverend Darkstanley the error of our ways, TMDC’s Robin Kok and Michiel Dekker talk us through their sound and plans to accommodate the old school in a particularly new and innovate way. Not to mention coke, university lecturing and trying to replicate their sound live on a wonky lap top.
AN: The new album (we gave it 9/10): do you think you might have gone too far this time?
Robin: Well, no. You can go to 10/10 for the next album (Pentasatanivm?); I guess you’ll have to go a different numbering system for the one after that (Hexaselloutatronivm?).
AN: Seriously though, the sound is, well, big. 70s metal’s outrage, 80s humour and excess and all injected into the swirling chaos of death metal. You must have had some interesting reactions from the death metal ‘core?
Robin: Definitely, and mostly negative from the ‘core of the ‘core. Old school fans don’t like it when you change stuff.
Michiel: I never cease to be amazed that some reviewers clearly hadn’t listened to the album, still categorize us as a Grind/US death metal band and start spewing vitriol about how we’re still copying Nile.
AN: Ok, how about this: Manowar locked in a cage fight with Nile, Fear Factory and Behemoth. In a Transformers video game. Have I missed anyone out there?
Michiel: Yeah, kick out Behemoth and bring in Strapping Young Lad, Psalm 69 Ministry, 90’s Cradle of Filth and Type O Negative.
AN: The band’s playful façade does not fool us. Your lyrics and concepts are politically charged in a genre that tends to shy away from dealing with the news agenda – African tribal genocide, political torture and the Baader-Meinhof Gang. Are you secretly trying to educate us?
Michiel: No, our lyrical themes have been basically the same since the release of The White Crematorium. We all love of history and historical subjects but also subjects which are in the news today.
Our role is the one of the politically incorrect, coked up narrator.
AN: Is there a theme to the record? Tetragrammaton means ‘the name of god’ or at least the written name of Yahweh (I think!) – so, are we broadly speaking about the unspeakable deeds done in the name of gods and ideologies?
Michiel: Interesting thought but no, there is no theme on the record. There are some typical TMDC themes which can be found on all our albums. Gods Amongst Insects deals with the same subjects as Origin (The White Crematorium) and Deus Ex Machina (TRIVMVIRATE). Qasr Al-Nihaya is the follow up of Wrath of the Ba’ath (TRIVMVIRATE). Aslimu and Human Wave Attack are dealing with extreme Islam just like Desecration of the Black Stone (The Apotheosis) and we have always songs about The Third Reich.
AN: The voice of Optimus Prime makes a big impact. Who is the character on the album actually supposed to be?
The character is also called Orion Pax [the pre-Prime name of the character that also emerges in storylines as an alternate Optimus Prime persona hijacked by the Decepticons – A.N.]
AN: The sound of the band has not so much changed direction since Trivmvirate (also highly recommended) as it has been unleashed upon the unsuspecting mortals of the earth. What has changed that led to the evolution in the sound? Or did you just get more money this time to let yourselves loose in the studio?
Michiel: The budget was disproportionate. Without recording one note we blow all our money on snorting coke from a stripper’s ass. We bought big houses for our parents and what was left was needed to get hotshot producer Guido Aalbers on board again.
Sooooo… Without any money for a decent studio it was pretty much a DIY job. We’ve found that recording on your own time, with no red lights and ticking bills just gives you the kind of relaxation you need to record in peace. Thanks to ProTools, you can basically record at home if you’ve got (access to) decent equipment, and our shadow producer / saviour in need Pascal Altena is always willing to help with gear and knowledge – probably because he’s known all of us for so long and doesn’t want us in our studio any more, So we basically do all the work ourselves and hand Guido a few hard disks and let him s(n)ort it out.
Getting us in a real studio will, without a doubt, bankrupt our label.
AN: How easy is it to replicate the sound on the record in a live situation?
Michiel: We already did a handful of gigs and the more gigs we played the more we realised that backing tracks are our friendsJ. Here is a full set we played in June 22 on the Dokk’em Open Air Festival in Holland – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkmoSv0c37E
Playing live is always tricky, because of all the electronics and computers. One spinning wheel of death and we are doomed…
A few weeks ago we played the Graspop Metal Meeting festival and 5 minutes before show time our laptop (literally) crashed down from a rolling riser – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5O5xZ0mCmg . We had to reboot it and fortunately everything worked fine.
AN: What has been the overall response to Tetragrammaton so far? Has it surprised you in anyway?
Michiel: yes and no. Yes because this album had all the ingredients people liked about TRIVMVIRATE, but more balanced. It seems that TETRAGRAMMATON is a love or hate album. The Love or Hate response was something I expected after TRIVMVIRATE because the difference between The White Crematorium and TRIVMVIRATE is much bigger than between TETRAGRAMMATON and TRIVMVIRATE.
No because we always wanted to be a Love or Hate band. I realised when we changed our style after The White Crematorium that our music would polarise the audience. And that is exactly what, later than I expected, is happening now. Give the large number of extremely high (i.e., extremely fixed/paid/bribed/extorted) reviews; I don’t think TETRAGRAMMATON is an album that will be easily overlooked.
Mission completed.
AN: How is the summer touring schedule looking? How easy is it to clear some room in your schedules from the day jobs?
Michiel: 99% of the shows we do are in the weekends. Our booking agency tmr-music-promotions.com is trying to work something out for a European Tour. I work at a school as a teacher so touring could be a problem, but I am sure I can work something out with my school.
AN: Is been a long time since the last main studio release (excluding The White Crematorium 2.0) – more than five years. Why so long?
Robin: TRIVMVIRATE was released in February 2008. Back in those days, we were still students so we had oceans of time to waste away on thinking of music and lyrics and themes. These days we’re proper slaves to the grind: Michiel works as a full-time teacher at a high school and I am lecturing and working on my doctorate at a university full-time.
Anyway, it’s not as if we bang out tunes by the dozen; a song starts with an idea or a theme and then gets worked, re-worked, re-reworked, scrapped, resurrected, deconstructed, reconstructed, moved around and polished endlessly until all members are happy. I think each and every song in TETRAGRAMMATON must have over 50 or 60 demo versions, each of which are different – ranging from slight changes only I hear to complete overhauls. I’ve got a folder on my computer I’ve just opened – it’s got tens of files in it with dozens of titles. Some songs are four themes that ultimately ended up in four different songs altogether. Some songs are quite old and haven’t changed in a major way for almost 2, 3 years. “Todesnacht von Stammheim” was pretty much finished in August 2010, so that’s 3 years ago. Even the vocal themes for Todesnacht were pretty much settled. The vocals for “Aslimu!!! were settled in October 2010.
AN: Will it be another five years before the next one?
Michiel: Sttttt Vorsicht! Feind hört mit. I don’t hope it will take another five years but people must understand that a track is ready when I say it is ready. I will never release a track on which I am not 100% sure. I am responsible for the tracks so when I feel I need another year to get the songs worked, re-worked, re-reworked, scrapped, resurrected, deconstructed, reconstructed, moved around or polished endlessly, I will take that year.
AN: Any other plans, side projects and treats for the fans you can tell us about?
We are thinking about releasing something on vinyl but the costs are too high because of the total playing time of our albums. We must sell more cd’s to bring Season of Mist on board. As said before we are working on a European tour and we are thinking on what to do with our first release The Apotheosis. It is nearly sold out and it needs a re-release. Maybe a 2 layered disc with the old skool TMDC and a version with all the samples and orchestras.
I’ve came up with a good idea for future live shows: “We are working on a live set to play in a venue where the stage is placed in the middle of the hall dividing it into two separate halls. Fans of old school death metal can go to one side of the hall were all electronics/samples are turned off. In the other half of the hall people will hear TMDC play with all instruments turned on. In the special VIP-area you can enjoy our music with the bass and vocals on mute.”
AN: For the next release, how can you top something so, well, over-the-top? Sorry to be British about this but it sounds like a health and safety risk?
Michiel: TRIVMVIRATE originated by accident. I had no idea what I was doing but it sounded extremely cool and heavy. When I wrote TETREGRAMMATON I had still no idea what direction I wanted to follow. I let the music flow…
AN: Any words of advice for anyone who think they could out-do Tetragrammaton?
In the immortal words of Nigel Tufnel, “where do you go from there?”.
Interviewed by Reverend Darkstanley
http://www.monolith-deathcult.com
https://www.facebook.com/monolithdeathcult
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